


Don't stop the music

by merciki



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 00:39:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15960986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merciki/pseuds/merciki
Summary: Katniss's Neighbor likes to listen to music.Too loudly.It's time this changes.





	Don't stop the music

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the birthday of a very special person. Someone close to my heart that I thought about as a sister, the one I never had.
> 
> Someone who made me the awesome gift of her friendship.
> 
> @akai-echo.
> 
> Who not only is a beautiful, talented artist, but also an amazing friend that I was lucky enough to meet this year.
> 
> Here is a tiny thing, beta-ed by the excellent @dandelion–sunset :)

She was going to kill him.

Since he had moved in, every Friday evening, there has been a party going on above her head. Loud music, people walking, laughter.

While every Friday for her was the same. Netflix and a pineapple pizza.

Thrilling.

Tonight, though, it was too much. Too much noise after a week of working her ass off in the lab, trying to extract enough DNA from a mosquito in amber - Jurassic Park style, only in real life, it was a lot more complex.

As well as a lot more headache inducing.

Hence the Netflix and chill.

Even though this night, it would AGAIN be impossible due to Dickhead up there playing the worst music known to mankind.

She could have blamed it on her mood, on her period, on whatever. She could have blamed it on fate.

She grabbed her hoodie, putting it on, took her keys, and rushed out the door. before climbing the stairs, and finally finding herself in front of her neighbor’s door. She knocked loudly as the music continued blaring through the hard wood.

She was not ready for the sight that graced her when the door finally opened.

Eyes bluer than the sky, blond curly hair having this just-got-out-of-bed style only men could achieve, ultra-bright smile, white tee-shirt and faded jeans.

The picture perfect ideal of an Abercrombie model.

“Yes?” he asked, eyes sparkling like a million tiny sapphires.

Katniss forced her brain to work, forced the words out of herself to make understandable sentences.

“The music! Too loud!”

Yep. She was definitely articulate. She felt the blush creeping up her cheeks at the mix of exhaustion, too much music, the handsome guy in front of her, and being alone on a Friday night instead of partying.

 

So she did what she was could best.

She turned around, and went down the nineteen stairs between her floor and the neighbor’s.

She noticed once she was inside her apartment that the music had gone down drastically.

–

She crossed by him in the halls of the building, or at the mailboxes.

He always smiled, nodded, or tried to talk to her.

She noticed how easily he carried big boxes or loaded bags.

She tried to pretend she didn’t notice, but she did.

–

Three weeks.

That’s all the reprieve she got before the music started again. A loud beat, echoing on the roof of her apartment, making her roof move lightly in rhythm.

Three Fridays where she could binge watch her favorite TV Show, pretending she was alone in her childhood home.

Three weeks.

WIthout giving it another thought, she grabbed her keys, put on her sneakers and headed upstairs, forgoing the lift in favor of the stairs because yes, she was that angry.

She knocked on the door as hard as she could.

She was going to rip him another one.

She was not ready for the sight that graced her when the door finally opened.

Instead of the blond man she had seen three weeks before, a curvy woman was holding the door opened with one hand, the other grabbing a glass full of something so pink-ish and smokey Katniss feared it might explode and create a hole in the hardwood floor.

“Oh my god, you’re the neighbor!” the woman said as her hand went to her mouth in recognition. “Peet told us to behave… I’m sorry, we got carried away, but it’s Leevy’s bachelorette party - maybe you want to come in?” she asked, looking at Katniss with a huge smile on her face.

“I don’t know Leevy? Or even you? Can you just keep the music down please?’

“Oh, of course! And I’m Delly, Peet’s cousin - not his girlfriend, okay?”

“Right.” Katniss nodded, as if it mattered that the woman wasn’t her neighbor’s girlfriend, before turning towards the stairs.

“Oh, and Leevy’s not his girlfriend either! He’s single!” Delly’s voice echoed in the staircase.

It didn’t matter, right?

 

Right.

 

She mostly persuaded herself it didn’t matter.

Mostly.

–

She tried to avoid him as best as she could the following week, making sure she heard his heavy stomp above her when she left her flat, peeking at the lobby to make sure he wasn’t picking up his mail. Everything. The whole nine yards.

Luck wasn’t on her side, though. She met him in the middle of the staircase (she knew she should have taken the lift). She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him, almost blocking the stairs.

(Yes, she had noticed she could have taken the stairs on her right and avoided him, but that wasn’t the point.)

She saw in slomo as his hand went to his hair, raking it through his unruly curls, looking all but confident.

“I’m sorry for Delly,” he said shyly. “I told her not to put the music on too loudly, but I guess she had too many cosmos or whatever she was drinking.”

“It wasn’t cosmos. It was pinkish and steamy,” Katniss heard herself answer before realizing she had done exactly what she didn’t mean to - interact with the noisy (handsome) neighbor.

“And cosmos aren’t pink?” he asked, before extending his hand. “I don’t think I’ve introduced myself. I’m Peeta.”

She looked at the hand, letting go of the oxygen in her lungs before taking it.

“Katniss.”

That was the starting point of their friendship.

—

It went on for weeks, a smile at a time, a touch at a time.

Until the music started again.

On a Friday evening.

She let it go for a few minutes, which turned into a solid hour before she made her move.

Maybe Peeta had lent his apartment to Delly again - but the noise had to stop.

She took her keys, put on her sneakers, took the stairs two at a time.

She didn’t wait to catch her breath, choosing to directly knock on the door.

She didn’t get to hit it a second time. It was as if Peeta had been waiting on the other side.

The door opened immediately. She saw Peeta looking at her, the blue in his eyes shivering.

“It’s for the music?” he asked, before turning slightly. Katniss could see the remote in his hand as he turned the stereo off. She noticed the flat was empty, but for a table set for two.

“I thought maybe you would like to have dinner?” he said, his hand finding his hair in the gesture she knew he did when he was nervous.

“Just you and me?” Katniss asked, looking at the candles lit on the table.

“Yeah… like… a date? Would you allow it?”

It took her less than a second to answer.

“I’ll allow it,” she agreed with a soft smile on her face.


End file.
